5.1

Friday, the 5 June was my last day of school in elementary! It was of course very sad that I knew that I wasn’t able to spend anymore time with my friends but still I tried to enjoy the moment while it lasts. At the end of the day (after assembly) Mrs.Batlaw said thank you and good luck for the people that were leaving earlier which was very nice. After school I met some other girls in the class and we talked a little bit and ate chips covered in chocolate which was the best by the way :)! We said bye which was really sad. I don’t know why I think it’s sad if I know that I’m still going to come back again after the summer but I think it’s because you can’t see them for a long time. I wished them and they wished me a happy holiday/summer and so we went off. The last day of school was a very good day, it was fun, it was enjoyable, and a lot more. I really like our class because they are very helpful, funny, creative TOGETHER, and everything else! I hope the last week of school for them is really good.

It has been a great year in grade 5.1. I will miss, Ms Batlaw she helped on a lot of things. Especially my friends in 5.1 and 5.2 were very nice to me but now it is going to be a new journey in Middle School. This was great experience from camp to Steven’s bee catching (R.I.P. bees).I will miss a lot of things that I did in grade 5.

Both teams debated passionately...made excellent points. Their candour and honesty were amazing. Children do view the world differently from adults. Their point of view is a lot simpler and less complicated. The only way to know what transpired is to ask the students or to be a mysterious fly on the wall!

The past few days in class we have been working with debating. What is debating, what happens when you debate, and what does “debate” even mean?We have learned that when you debate it basically means that you have a topic, you do research and you argue about that special thing. It’s also good if we give examples and give sources. We have been divided in 2 groups and the day before we needed to study both pros and cons about our main topic. Whenever we have time we would sit in a line and talk about it. We are though NOT ALLOWED to research/go on the internet at the same time that the debate is happening! We do our best to talk as a group and to let everyone be part of the debate which I (Maya) think we are succeeding very well with. Each time we give an example or gives a source we get 1 point. If you give a very good point about your argument you have a chance that you can get 2 points. The team with the most points win the round. How do we decide who starts?1 person from each team do rock, paper, scissors up to 1, the team that wins gets to start… AND pick what thing they want to argue about, for exampleSay the category is Dogs VS Cats! There is team A and team B, 1 person from team A and 1 person from team B do rock, paper, scissor and team B wins. Team B then gets to pick if they want to go against cats or if they want to go against dogs.

The objective of the lesson was to use technology to find compass directions and to apply our skills to a real life situation. So we set off in pairs with the ipads that had the compass application. Students were given an ariel map of our school and its neighbourhood. They had to look for landmarks, and then identify the exact location.

Our New Unit on Puberty Last week we started our new unit on puberty. At first I was kind of feeling uncomfortable talking about what we go through during puberty, but then Mrs. Batlaw said it’s ok this is important things that we need to know. On the first day we went into groups and we had to write and draw what we knew on puberty. It felt weird when we wrote and drew because we knew that girls get periods so it was uncomfortable to write them. We also had to write what we thought puberty is.The more we learned about puberty the more comfortable I get because we would do more research and understand what puberty actually is.I learned that girls start growth puberty a bit before boys do so that is why sometimes girls are taller than boys but eventually boys will grow taller. Yesterday we started our research on puberty and then would have to present it to the whole class.It’s interesting what we are learning and know I know when puberty comes. MAYA PERFORMING BELOW AT THE TALENT SHOW

Whats happening in literacy:

In my novel study group ( Kevin, Ken, Panashe and I) are reading The Hatchet for the novel which is written by Gary Paulsen. This book was okay. I liked the starting and ending. However, I did not like the middle part because there was a lot of description and it was really boring. I think author’s message isdo not panic even if you are in a really bad situation. If Brian have committed suicide, he would not get rescued and could have died.I recommend this book to: adults and older children because younger children may get frightened and never fly a plane.

In the uoi...PanAshe' s blogpost

For the past 2 weeks, we have been learning about Puberty and what Puberty is. We learn’t a lot. last week on Wednesday the boys and girls from G5 had to separate so the girls were in one rom and the boys were in another. We talked about what girls go through in Puberty and the boys talked about what boys go through in Puberty.This week on Tuesday, we had to go into the I.T room and research on a Puberty question we had in mind. I researched on Acne and found out a lot of new things i didn’t know before like, you can get acne when you’re just born, but that's only if you mum passes hormones to you before you're born.What I liked the most out of these two weeks was when G5 separated boys and girls and we talked about what we go though as girls in Puberty.

In the next five weeks we will be inquiring into the unit organized under the theme of ‘Who We Are’. The Central Idea of the inquiry is: We grow and change in many different ways as we transition through life.Our lines of inquiry are:

We experience physical changes

Social and emotional pressures of adolescents

Actions that affect personal well-being

The unit will cover the physical and emotional changes that come with puberty and ways of managing these changes. This is an opportunity for students to learn about the growth and development that they will be experiencing both mentally and physically as they go through puberty. We will also touch upon sexual reproduction at an age appropriate level.

As a core resource we will be using an educational pack produced by the BBC and widely used in Primary Schools throughout the UK.

I made this bee catcher out of a styrofoam cup and an A 4 paper. I got the ideas from the fish trap because fish like the bees have small brains … once they get into the trap, they can’t get out. And bees’ brains are even smaller.I made this trap to catch the bees that have come into our classroom. They usually come to the window near Yendra, Tomoki and I and scare everyone near me.My catcher really works.I trapped 25 bees in it. I picked the bees with a pair of scissors, and then threw them inside the bee catcher. I could hear them buzzing and bumping against the ceiling.The bees are dead now. Once bees die they don’t give off a smell because their water evaporates very quickly and their body dehydrates quickly.